


Eros

by paraTactician



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-07
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraTactician/pseuds/paraTactician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever and wherever these two meet, it tends to go much the same way.</p><p>With profound apologies to Plato.</p><p>(Originally written for <a href="http://hs-olympics.livejournal.com/">HSO '11</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eros

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for Round 3 of the Homestuck Shipping Olympics, for which the prompt was 'Timewarp' - AUs set in a specific time period other than the present.
> 
> This didn't end up being Team Dave<3Terezi's submission, as we opted for 'The MacGuffin File', which is glorious in pretty much every way - I don't _think_ it's on AO3, but you can read it [here](http://hso-r3.livejournal.com/3541.html). But Round 3 was eventually won by an Ancient-Greece-themed fic, courtesy of Team Jade<3Rose, which I found gratifying.

Every morning she puts on her sandals and her ragged cloak and she walks two miles from her house to the agora, where she sits cross-legged in the shade of her usual pillar and folds her skinny hands in her lap and waits.

She is not a beggar. She is a seeker after truth.

Someone always comes to talk. Often it is a fishwife or one of the women who sell herbs, and all they want to do is gossip; the weather, the crops, the progress of the war. For these she has little use. They do not want to learn; they only want to hear their own opinions told back to them.

On better days some young man will wander past with his friends, laughing and shoving and whistling at the slaves, and will stop to gape.

 _

What are you doing down there, woman?

_

 _I am thinking._

 _Have you no home to think in?_

or

 _Don’t you know men never want to marry a girl who thinks too much?_

or

 _And what are you thinking about?_

The last one’s the best, although she’ll take what she’s given. The point is the question. The point is that there is something, however stupid, however trivial, they want to know.

Wanting is all. Wanting is a fire and there is only one way to put it out. Pass it by and it will burn your whole house down. When a man or a woman wants, they cannot rest until they _have._

Teireze the philosopher knows all about wanting.

* * *

The first time he came by he had been training in the fields with Carcinus and Ecbatus and a couple of others. They had not even noticed her, lurking in the shadow of her column, eyes fixed on the sky, but he had stopped and drawn them over. She heard the clash and creak of his armour and knew he was a soldier, hoped there would not be trouble. She could smell the olive oil sheen on his limbs and the coppery blood tang of his breastplate, and neither drowned the warm heavy salt of his sweat. He had driven himself hard that morning. He must be on his way for a jug of wine, some bread and honey, perhaps a whore to help soothe away the ache in his muscles.

His voice was light and amused and younger than she’d guessed.

 _Khaire, anassa._

She had to duck to hide a grin. _Anassa!_ The old word for a noble lady or a queen. Two words and he was already trying to piss her off. That was a good sign.

 _Khaire kai su,_ she’d said, politely.

 _

Those stones don’t look comfortable.

_

 _That armour sounds heavy._

A pause. Not the answer he’d expected, clearly.

 _

I wear my armour to toughen myself.

_

 _I sit on the stones for the same reason._

Ask me a question, she thought. Show me what you want.

 _

It’s not right for a woman to make herself tough.

_

 _You mean it’s not attractive._

 _That’s not what I said._

Another pause and he spoke again.

 _Are you hungry?_

What kind of a first question was _that_? She blinked, irritated.

 _

No.

_

 _But you have no food._

 _People bring me food._

 _What do they bring?_

 _Bread. Olives. Sometimes cheese._

 _What do you like?_

This was really not going right at all. She contemplated _what is it to like a thing, then, my friend?_ , but she sensed he’d leave.

 _

...Apples. I like apples best.

_

 _Tomorrow perhaps I’ll bring you an apple. Khaire._

And he was gone.

* * *

He wasn’t there the next day, or the next. But a few days later she was talking to a group of young trolls from the Academy, who were sitting in a rough semicircle around her, intent, when she smelt him again. Sweat, and olive oil, and autumn wind in the pines along the Areopagus.

She’d set the boys a simple problem. In Homer, Agamemnon takes the slave-girl Briseis away from Achilles as a punishment. Achilles refuses to fight, and so the Achaeans begin to lose the war. Which of the two men was right?

 _King Agamemnon was right,_ said one. _He was the lord of the army and of all Greece. He had a right to Briseis if he wanted her._

 _No!_ said another, hotly. _Achilles was right. It would not be honourable to fight for a man who disrespected you in public._

 _You’re using different words,_ she said calmly. _I don’t want to know about the law, or about honour. I want to know which man acted correctly. I want to know about justice._

When the boys had gone away he said, from somewhere above and to her left, _Is that justice, then? Acting correctly?_

 _You tell me,_ she said.

He laughed.

 _No. I’m not playing that game. Here._

She got her hand up just in time for the smooth weight to thump into her palm. She brought it to her mouth and breathed in. Fresh, still a little wet with that morning’s dew, and _red_ ; perfect red, bright and deep, like blood. Had he known? She ran the tip of her tongue delicately along her fangs, forced herself not to bite just yet.

 _What’s your name?_ , he asked.

A crack. There _was_ something he wanted, after all. Now she just had to work out what it was.

 _Teireze,_ she said. _What’s yours?_

 _Diabas, son of Adelphus._

Diabas. He who strides. Odd name. The _b_ was a little soft the way he said it, slipping into _v_. Was he an Arcadian, perhaps?

 _Why do you waste time talking to boys and slaves too stupid to understand what you’re saying?_ , he asked suddenly.

 _Because if no-one ever talks to them,_ she said, _they’ll never stop being stupid._

 _You’re a good speaker. If you’d been a man you could have spoken in the Assembly. You’d have carried motions like_ that, and she heard the sharp snap of his fingers.

 _There are many things I could have done if I’d been a man,_ she said.

 _Do you wish you were?_

 _It’s foolish to compare one’s own city with a city one has only heard of in tales. Only someone who has lived in both cities can say which is best._

 _They say the blind prophet, Teiresias, was changed from a man to a woman and back again._

 _And when the gods asked him who enjoyed sex more, he said women had nine-tenths of the pleasure, and men only one-tenth. I know the story! But I am no prophet._

 _You’re blind, though._

She froze.

 _Why do you say so?_

 _You said my armour sounded heavy. And when I first made as if to throw the apple, you did not move. You can eat it, by the way. It’s clean._

 _I’m not hungry,_ she said, swallowing more drool. _I’ll save it for later._

 _Don’t wait too long, then. It won’t stay ripe for ever._

She could still hear his bare feet on the stone long after he must have vanished into the crowd.

* * *

Today when she leaves the agora at evening, when the stallholders pack up and the stray dogs come sniffing from the alleys, she does not pull her cloak tight and begin the long walk home. She walks to the house of Rhodone, near the Theatre of Dionysus.

Rhodone is a _hetaera,_ a ‘companion’, and an upstanding Athenian gentlewoman would not be seen dead near her door. Most young Athenian gentle _men_ , conversely, would kill to get across the threshold. Teireze is neither of these things, and she simply walks in, past the door-slave, who nods acknowledgement; because Rhodone is her friend, and Rhodone is holding a party.

Why does the most beautiful, accomplished, and literate woman in Athens count among her friends a girl who sits in rags in the agora all day like some lowblood vagrant? Ask Teireze and she’ll cackle and say it’s an interesting question and before you know it you’ll be trapped. Ask Rhodone and she’ll just smile.

Teireze lies down on a couch beside Ecbatus, who is besotted with their hostess and also a fundamentally nice guy and is therefore unlikely to get grabby when he’s drunk. Getting ineptly fondled by a young nobleman in his cups is flattering, but does nothing to promote discussion. She listens, strains out voices. No surprises. Carcinus and Canaea. Hippaeus and Nepeta. Eridanus, showing off as usual. Macarius, already drunk, by the sound of it.

It’s a good party. Rhodone mixes the wine herself and mixes it strong. Slave-boys play pipes from the alcoves. Conversation yields to music; the usual sequence, patriotic anthems slowly crumbling into love-songs. Before everyone can get properly drunk and emotional, though, Hippaeus halts the proceedings.

“I was thinking,” he says. “We should have a competition.”

“What kind of competition?” asks Rhodone, too polite to point out that it’s her party.

“These gatherings usually sink into debauchery and impiety on a grand scale,” he says sternly. Teireze can imagine him mopping his brow with a cloth.

“That’s the _point_ ,” says Carcinus.

“ _So_ , we should attempt to right the balance.”

Teireze likes balances.

“I propose a contest of oratory. Each of us will make a speech, in praise of a god. Whoever speaks best and most convincingly will be crowned the victor.”

“Like the Olympic Games?” asks Ecbatus.

“Exactly. It will be a sort of Olympic Games, fought only with words.”

“A charming idea,” says Rhodone, and tinkles a small bell for the slaves to pour more drinks. “It ought to catch on. Hippaeus, perhaps you’ll start?”

* * *

So they all make speeches.

Hippaeus praises Zeus; the strongest of the gods, who rules with an iron fist over all. A bit obvious, Teireze thinks. Ecbatus goes next and speaks of Hermes, the youthful prankster who flies as fast as the winds. Rhodone – though most _hetaerae_ regard Aphrodite as their patron – makes a complex and impressive speech in praise of Athene, goddess of plans and tactics and of hand-craft. It’s the best so far by a distance. Ecbatus falls over himself to say so.

Macarius actually attempts a speech, praising Dionysus, god of intoxication and divine madness, by turns the most cheerful and the most terrifying of the Olympians. He’s so drunk it’s pretty much incomprehensible, but the company agrees that the god would approve. Nepeta picks Artemis, who dwells in the wilds and hunts the very animals she loves. Eridanus takes Poseidon, and drones on at tedious length about the unimaginable vastness and majesty of the ocean bluh bluh. Canaea makes a short but touching speech arguing in favour of dark-robed Leto, whom the poet Hesiod called _gentle from the very start, the kindliest one on Olympus_ ; she points out that it was Leto who later gave birth to Apollo, unquestionably one of the mightiest of the gods, and that a mother’s role should never be overlooked.

Carcinus says the whole thing is unbelievably fucking retarded, that Hippaeus is a slack-arsed Phrygian catamite, and that he wouldn’t make a speech if you nailed him to the Dipylon Gate by his bulge.

Teireze has waited dutifully, and now it is her turn. She begins to speak, in praise of her favourite goddess: Justice.

“But Zeus is the god of justice!” objects Hippaeus.

“I don’t mean justice in the sense of a right verdict in the law-court,” says Teireze, “or one’s duty to a guest. Justice is much more than that. She is the mightiest of them all, since it is only through her that all else has its proper place. How could Zeus remain the king of the gods were it not for Justice? It is Justice who puts gods and men alike in order. It is Justice who allotted the seas to Poseidon, the woods to Artemis, and the guidance of ghosts to Hermes. Without Justice we would have nothing at all, since we would never have escaped the formless blackness before the beginning of time.”

She can tell she’s got them interested. A hush has fallen. Someone shuffles to sit up. Macarius is passed out and snoring, but never mind. Teireze begins to warm to her theme.

Then the door crashes open and Diabas, son of Adelphus, bursts on the room like summer lightning.

He is very drunk, and draped in garlands of glorious flowers, and anointed with expensive oils. He is leaning on the shoulders of two slaves, one of whom is playing the pipes, the other a small wooden drum. Wild singing can be heard from the hallway. He hits Teireze’s remaining senses like a sudden fire in the dead of night. He is a one-man _komos_ , a riot of colour and noise and rich, delicious scents.

Nearly everyone cheers. The bubble of scholarly concentration collapses. Rhodone says something to a slave that gets lost in the sudden din, but it’s probably a command to fetch yet more drink. Ecbatus, to Teireze’s horror, scoots up the couch away from her and pats the cushions eagerly and calls out.

Diabas crashes down between them in a louche tangle of flowers and wine. Teireze can’t breathe. Even under all the perfume she can still smell him, the salt sweat and the pines. Her mouth starts to water worse than when she sniffed the apple, the apple she eked out for a whole morning once he’d gone, bite by tiny juicy ecstatic bite, and she tightens her jaw.

“What’s up?” he asks the room in general.

“We were making speeches,” says Hippaeus stiffly, “in praise of the gods. Perhaps while you are the centre of attention you would like to contribute?”

“Do Apollo!” urges Ecbatus. “No-one’s done Apollo yet!”

Apollo. Yes. Inhumanly proud, impossibly beautiful; a warrior and a poet and a lover and a dreamer. Golden hair and an athlete’s limbs and eyes like two stars. She can see him managing Apollo.

“No,” he says. “Apollo can speak for himself, if he wants. I shall aim my cast at a god far greater than he.”

“I’ve already done Zeus,” says Hippaeus.

“Greater even than Zeus.”

Hippaeus is scandalised.

“I,” Diabas begins simply, “am the best warrior in Athens. I can ride any horse, run for miles in full armour, hurl a spear clean through an oak trunk at half a stadium’s length. On the field of war I acknowledge no equal.”

“You can’t pick _yourself_ , you smug cocksucker,” Carcinus mutters.

“But a few weeks ago I was defeated entirely.”

That gets their attention. She hears heads go up, giggling cease. Is he going to pick Ares, god of the battle’s press? Heracles, son of Zeus, the mightiest mortal who ever lived?

“As I walked through the agora I saw a girl sitting by a pillar. The stones were hard, but she had no cushion. The sky looked like rain, and she had only a thin tunic and a cloak that looked like Odysseus himself had worn it. She was among stalls selling fish and grapes and figs and wine and yet she had no food.

“I went back the next day, and the next, just close enough to listen, though I stayed downwind. I heard her as she talked to slaves and noblemen and shopkeepers. I watched her as she took a knife to them, to all they claimed they knew, to all they told themselves they saw. She asked questions, little questions that sounded easy, and let them bury themselves in the rubble of bad argument and foolish views and self-deception. She showed them that they did not really want the things they thought they wanted. I watched as a blind girl sent them on their way with their eyes open.

“But it was not until I gave her an apple that I knew I was defeated. Because I saw the way she held it cupped in her palm, I saw the way she raised it to her face to breathe it in until her lips nearly brushed it, I saw how her eyelids fluttered for a moment. And at that moment, strange to say, I desired nothing so much in the world as to change places with that apple. I had listened to her talk, and sure enough she had shown me what I wanted.

“There is only one god who can do all this. Only one god who can make a girl in a patched tunic sit on paving slabs all day just to show people the truths they don’t want to see. Only one god who can make a bold young warrior, the pride of his city, envy the honours paid to a piece of fruit. He is not Zeus, or Apollo, or Hades. I speak for him because he is too young to speak for himself. His name is Love, and today I claim him as the greatest of all the gods on high, and today I claim him as my own.”

Teireze has been a scholar of wanting for a long time and it has made her patient. She lets the last sentence finish and the applause start before she climbs on top of him. His bare chest is slick with oil where she slithers against him, but like he said, she probably needs a new tunic anyway. The smell of pinewoods is at its strongest in the warm hollow where his neck meets his stubbled jaw. And his mouth tastes better even than the apple had.

“Debauchery and impiety, you see,” she hears a voice intone sorrowfully from the other side of the room, amid the clapping and the laughter and the cheers.

“Oh, do shut up, Hippaeus,” says Rhodone.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Note on names** (caution: only read on if you really like words!) –
> 
>  _Teireze_ is just an attempt to make _Terezi_ into a valid Greek word (ancient Greek doesn’t admit nouns ending in _–i_ , for example), as well as bringing it slightly more in line with the ‘blind prophet’ _Teiresias_.
> 
>  _Diabas_ is the most complicated change. It’s the masculine singular aorist participle (oh yes) of the verb _diabaino_ , meaning ‘I take long steps, I stride’ – so, literally, ‘the striding guy’. There was some slippage even in ancient Greek between the _b_ and _v_ sounds, and in modern Greek _b_ is actually pronounced as _v_ , so with a bit of historical license you can pronounce this name as _Dyavas_ , making his ‘secret identity’ slightly clearer. _Adelphos_ means ‘brother’.
> 
>  _Carcinus_ ( _Karkinos_ ) is simply the Greek word for a crab, and is also the name of the constellation Cancer, which is where we get English words like _carcinogen_.
> 
>  _Ecbatus_ ( _Ekbatos_ ) becomes more obvious if you know that the consonant group _–kb-_ in Greek tended to slide together with _–gb-_ , so this name can be pronounced something like _EG-buh-tos_.
> 
>  _Rhodone_ is a word I made up, but it’s based on words like _rhodinos_ ‘made of roses’ and _rhodonia_ ‘rose-garden’. The Greek for ‘rose’ is simply _rhodon_ , which sounded a bit clunky for a woman of her elegance.
> 
>  _Canaea_ ( _Kanaia_ ) is obvious (though it’s not a Greek word and doesn’t mean anything).
> 
>  _Hippaeus_ ( _Hippaios_ ) means ‘the horsey one’, which is what _Equius_ would mean if it were a real Latin word.
> 
>  _Nepeta_ does actually appear in Greek, although it was originally a Latin word. The genuine Greek for the same plant would be _Calaminthe_ , but I thought that was a bit _too_ obscure.
> 
>  _Eridanus_ ( _Eridanos_ ) was a Greek word to begin with; it was the name of two rivers, a mythological one somewhere in Europe, and a real one that still trickles through Athens today and is haunted by some extremely fine tortoises.
> 
>  _Macarius_ ( _Makarios_ ) sounds like _Makara_ , but also means ‘blessed’, which amused me.


End file.
